Take a lesson in prison reform from San Quentin

By William Drummond

UpdatedJanuary 24, 2017 — 5.56pmfirst published at 4.00pm

Nothing says prison in the US quite like the name San Quentin, an outcropping of drab yellow cell blocks on 100 hectares of land jutting into San Francisco Bay. Ferries from San Francisco pass close enough for passengers to wave at inmates in one of the exercise yards.

It is the oldest prison in California, dating to 1852, and the most notorious, largely because of its popularity as a backdrop for Hollywood films, dating to 1937, and the famous 1969 Johnny Cash album recorded inside a prison dining hall, San Quentin you've been living hell to me.

UC Berkeley Professor William Drummond (with glasses standing in centre) at the offices of the San Quentin News with inmate editors (standing) and (seated) civilian advisers. Credit: Sam Robinson

The penitentiary houses 4000 mainline prisoners and the 750 souls condemned to die on Death Row.

San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.You've cut me and have scarred me thru an' thru.And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man;Mister Congressman why can't you understand.

Advertisement

An inmate walks to his cell as corrections officers patrol at San Quentin Prison.

Nevertheless, San Quentin has escaped its dark reputation to become a beacon for prison reform in California. Prisoners used to dread being sent there. Now many of California's 100,000 male felons have waged years-long campaigns to get themselves transferred to the penitentiary Cash once said he wanted to see rot in hell.

The popularity is easy to explain. San Quentin has an abundance of self-help and rehabilitation programs, foremost among them is the celebrated Prison University Project. Organised as a non-profit in 1994, PUP, as it's called, offers college-level classes free to qualified San Quentin inmates. Even the books are free. Its faculty is made up of volunteers from distinguished colleges and universities throughout the bay area, including the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford and San Francisco State.

PUP offers a smorgasbord of subjects from humanities, social sciences and math (Western art history to calculus). About 300 inmates take PUP courses at any given time. It is possible to earn an associate of arts degree while serving time. Its popularity has lead to a waiting list more than a year long.

My introduction to PUP came in 2012. I agreed to teach an introductory journalism class for inmates. The class had 18 enrolled students and five auditors. They met the definition of "bad hombres". They represented the outcome of 20 years of California's tough-on-crime campaigns, including the notorious three-strikes law.

Guards in an elevated platform keep watch on caged prisoners in the excercise yard of the adjustment centre at San Quentin Prison in California.Credit:AP

The students were middle-aged men, most of whom were African Americans whose crimes were often an outgrowth of turf battles over drugs. Latinos, whites and a few Asians made up the rest of the class. What they all had in common was that they came from disadvantaged backgrounds in poverty-stricken neighbourhoods that had become free-fire zones.

I had been teaching journalism at Berkeley for more than 25 years and I was used to dealing with bright, motivated 20-somethings for whom my class was a small part of their active, busy campus lives. I learned right away that at San Quentin my class was the major event in the men's lives. They hung on my every word. They read and re-read every comment I put on their assignments (most of which were hand-written). Classroom discussions were lively, congenial and always respectful.

Many of the men were prison-educated and reading their prose was often tough going. But the stories they told were engrossing. One student interviewed an inmate who had escaped from prison by hiding inside a carton containing a couch built in a prison workshop.

The presence of programs like PUP have helped make the prison a learning and self-improvement environment. Inmates think that their confinement at San Quentin improves their chances not just for parole, but also for making useful lives for themselves after their release.

Last September, then President Barack Obama awarded PUP the National Humanities Medal. "For transforming the lives of incarcerated people through higher education. Its programs offer opportunity and inspiration to their students, providing an example for others to emulate."

The US Department of Justice says inmates in education programs are 43 per cent less likely to return to prison within three years compared with those who pass up education. This means every dollar invested in prison education saves $5 down the road in future incarceration costs. NSW would do well to re-examine it's decision to cut teaching staff in jails; the return on investment could be astounding.

William Drummond is a former LA Times foreign correspondent, associate press secretary to President Jimmy Carter and is now professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.